Why Earned Recognition is good business for fleets
Patrick Tandy, managing director of Freeway Fleet Systems, explains how the DVSA scheme encourages best-practice maintenance procedures
One of the striking effects of the global pandemic has been an acceleration in the switch to digital ways of working.
Essential information stored in the office filing cabinet really isn’t much help when everyone has been told to work from home. Businesses that had made the switch away from paper to providing easy access to everything through a central online system have been able to adapt quite easily to remote, socially distanced working.
Companies have been gradually moving away from paper for years, but the priority has largely been in areas such as finance, customer service and sales. Transport operations have benefited as well with routing and scheduling software, transport management systems, telematics and electronic proof of deliveries.
Those maintaining the fleet have, however, often had to play second fiddle; and for many operators the burden of paper remains when it comes to maintenance records, stores documents and compliance bureaucracy. Fortunately for fleet engineers, the pandemic has focussed the minds of those running the business on the benefits of paperless working.
There is, however, another very important player here and that is the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA). It is clear that compliance is going digital and operators need to get geared up.
Government is on a mission to streamline and like businesses, digitisation is crucial. The DVSA wants to work a lot smarter moving away from random checks toward an intelligence-led approach. For that they need better, up-to-date and easily accessible data about every vehicle on the road.
With the Earned Recognition scheme, the DVSA made its intentions clear; digital reporting is coming. It is still a fledgling scheme and optional for now; since the pilot in 2018 the DVSA has had time to test the idea further and hone down its own processes to get ready for wider rollout.
For transport operators, this change in compliance reporting is another reason to accelerate the switch to digital working. Meeting the digital reporting requirements of Earned Recognition is however only part of the story – gaining accreditation means a company becomes an official government endorsed ‘exemplary operator’ and that represents an important ‘badge of honour’ for any business.
In the transport world, being able to display the DVSA Earned Recognition marque is arguably more important than a raft of ISO accreditations. And while there are some independent audit charges to join the ER scheme, membership itself is free.
It tells the world that the company excels when it comes to maintaining its fleet, a company that puts good practice and road safety first. For management it also provides peace of mind, knowing that their engineers are doing everything right to protect their O-licence.
The scheme requires operators report five key performance indicator (KPI) targets by providing safety inspection records with proof that they have been correctly completed, signed off and carried out on time. Proof is also needed that driver defects have been correctly reported and appropriately actioned and operators need to report on MOT first time pass rates.
In return, operators should not see their vehicles stopped at the roadside and won’t have DVSA enforcement staff visiting their premises. Accredited operators will also be able to apply for self-testing which will negate the need for third party MOT testing – something that will reduce operational downtime.
So, how are operators equipped to deal with Earned Recognition? This takes us back to the digital issue as the scheme requires operators to provide digital reports. Ultimately DVSA will require that walk-around checks and workshops are fully digital; currently concessions allow records to be manually recorded and post-processed digitally but these opt-outs will inevitably end as rules are tightened. Earned Recognition does also require a level of audit.
Those with a fully automated workshop and compliance system may already have digital recording of safety inspections, driver first use checks and MOTs so generating the required reports should be straightforward. By having a ‘systemised’ process in place users are able to follow best practice procedures.
A properly set-up system will ensure that staff enter all the correct data, in the correct format, ensuring consistent company-wide datasets. In this way the system will navigate companies to compliance, whether it be Earned Recognition, FORS or ISO 9001. It’s especially beneficial for operators with multiple depots.
Digitising what is already being done has to be faster, better and easier than old analogue systems. However one of the greatest concerns about accreditations is the potential burden on management and administrators.
Having a system in place to provide the necessary compliance reports is one thing, but will the system help or hinder the additional work needed to achieve the end goal? This is very important and something Freeway learnt when getting involved in the Earned Recognition pilot back in 2018.
To help ease the burden of accreditation, Freeway’s software engineers looked at how data analysis and artificial intelligence could be applied to make it easier to manage compliance.
For managing Earned Recognition, there is a useful compliance tracker feature that automatically alerts managers to any outstanding issues with a screen displaying colour coded alarm status if compliance data is missing. Exception based lists are then generated automatically showing all items that need to be addressed in order to meet the five KPIs.
Another useful tool is a ‘defect manager’ app that speeds up workflows and gives fingertip access to an array of defect-related data, including historical records of previous maintenance work and parts.
For use by workshop staff, the app provides real-time access to documents about the vehicle being worked on, including manuals and diagnostic sheets. It also allows identification of the parts related to a defect and enables direct issue or request from stores.
Operators with multiple maintenance providers face particular challenges as the required maintenance records can be located in different third party systems. Freeway has developed a handy tool that automates the collection of vehicle data held in different systems, eliminating time-consuming data entry with automated data extraction and compliance reporting.
There is also a mobile app to give managers instant access, via their smartphones, to key information such as inspections, defects completed and rectification status.
With digitisation and KPI data, operators themselves benefit and for good business practice and efficiency alone, achieving the Earned Recognition marque is sure to be an objective for many in 2021.
